


In Memoriam

by toujours_nigel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-31
Updated: 2010-05-31
Packaged: 2018-03-09 19:30:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3261716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/pseuds/toujours_nigel





	In Memoriam

Same old bar, same old drink, same old boy. Same old day, too, and same old greeting. “Where’s the wife?”

“Antigua with her sister and the kids.” Smile, drink, retort. “Where’s yours?”

“On pilgrimage.” He’s grown thinner, the sheen of married complacence worn off—the wedding band is loose around his finger, and clinks against the glass.

It is enough to push you towards a malevolence you cannot really afford, and inevitably indulge in at this time of year. “Your daughter, too?”

“My daughter, too,” he says, and finishes his whisky and bows his head over the empty tumbler—she’s had him cut his braids off, and that’s something you’ve never entirely forgiven. You’d rather loved his hair, when you’d the right to.

“Going to pretend it doesn’t bother you that she’s going to grow up thinking of Potter as her own personal demi-god?” He might not even be pretending, that’s the hell of it. He might have given up, given in, surrendered his child to the Potter-worship her mother indulges in. That the whole clan of Weasels indulges in, and much of wizarding Britain. It’s slow at Oinos for a Friday, with everyone who’s been able to wrangle an early leave off to pay homage to the Boy Who Lived.

Your mother used to be one of the pilgrims, in the early years, when the Malfoy name was desperately in need of every scrap of good publicity it could scrounge—and what better publicity than Narcissa Malfoy crying in Ginny Weasley’s arms, so beautifully penitent?—but you’ve never been able to stomach the hypocrisy of it. Then, too, you’ve had your fill of servility, and even to pretend it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.To lose Blaise to it would hurt as much as losing him to Ginny, would be a clear marker of having lost him entirely.

“Come to the manor with her tomorrow,” you say when he has refused to answer you, has only poured and drunk another tumbler of Ogden’s Old in silence. “She can have the run of the place.” He looks up at that, as though waiting to catch you in a lie—but your adoration of Valeria is utterly sincere, and untainted by your lingering dislike of the Weasels that claim half her blood. “I’ve hardlyseen her at all this year.”

He looks away like he can’t bear to hold your glance. “Draco,” he says, and you drag your hands to the stem of your wine-glass, your eyes to the weave of the table-cloth. “Draco mine.”

“I’ll invite Pansy, make it a reunion of sorts.” You can even invite Godfrey and Carlotta, perhaps have Theo Nott visit as well, and Millicent—make a Slytherin gathering of it, and suppress any chances of it ending like the debacle last year, with you pinned against the wall beneath his weight, rutting mere hand-spans from Valeria tossing in uneasy sleep.

“Draco,’ he says again, and you know you could stuff the house with guests and it wouldn’t matter—there are reasons you never meet save at public place, after all, and you both know what happens when you deviate from the routine in the slightest.

“Bring your wife,” you say in lieu of an apology. “I haven’t seen Ginevra in far too long.”


End file.
